Prologue: The First Overseas Empire

Abstract

Finding the first episode of French international expansion is a matter of choice. Charlemagne, crowned Holy Roman Emperor in the year 800, created a multinational European empire. In the eleventh century, the French expanded overseas when William the Conqueror defeated the British and occupied England in 1066; 26 years later, Normans established a kingdom in Sicily which lasted for 200 years. The French ventured even further afield during the Crusades, the campaign to liberate the Christian holy land from infidel Arabs and, not coincidentally, to win glory, booty and political influence for the crusaders; from 1099 to 1187, Frenchmen ruled the kingdom of Jerusalem. From 1192 to 1372, another French dynasty reigned over Cyprus, and for a brief period at the beginning of the fourteenth century, a French adventurer lorded over the Canary Islands.¹